Weakest Lynx

by Fiona Quinn

  “Blaze, I need you to cut open Gater’s shirt. Be careful not to pull. Gater’s ribs are broken on the right-hand side. Wrap the ribs in Ace bandages to give him some relief. Then clean and dress the gunshot wound on his upper arm using butterfly strips. The bullet didn’t penetrate, it only grazed him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Blaze picked a pair of scissors from the box.

  “Blaze, what’s your protocol for getting people to the hospital?”

  “Ma’am, unless the situation is life or death, we can’t have EMS respond here to the house. We’ll have to transport them ourselves. I can’t leave you alone, and you can’t come with me. I alerted the team. They’re forty-five minutes away if all the lights and the traffic are with them, and they push the pedal down.”

  An hour passed before the phone rang, and I heard a motor gunning up the drive. The door burst open; the team strode in. I had my healing hands on Gater by now. Both of the men had absorbed a ton of energy and were in trances, unaware that the others had arrived. Striker looked at me for a report. Blaze had explained what I was doing when they checked in over the phone.

  As I removed my hands, Gater stirred and opened his eyes. I went to the kitchen and washed with soap and water. I took a minute to center myself and disconnect the energetic link before I spoke.

  “Gater needs to go to the hospital. Broken ribs on the right. I tried not to touch them with the Reiki energy. The bones aren’t lined up properly. Likewise, I didn’t work on the gash on his arm.” I pointed over at him. “After they suture him, I can heal it. If I do anything now, the skin wouldn’t be as neat—it would leave a bigger scar.” I moved toward Jack, who pushed to sitting. “I think I got everything else. Jack sustained injuries mostly from a blow to the head and burns from the engine. He stretched the ligaments in his right knee and ankle. I can’t see any swelling or bruising now. You’ll want an orthopedist to look at him, anyway.”

  Striker nodded, his face unreadable. “Can they walk?”

  “Give them another minute to come out of their healing states. They need to drink water before they go.”

  Striker glanced toward Blaze, who went to the kitchen and pulled glasses from the cupboard. I moved to the living room and sat on the rocking chair. My hands lay open in my lap. My head leaned back; my eyes closed. The energy continued to pour out of me. I couldn’t seem to shut down the voltage. Weird. This had never happened before. I buzzed like a beehive. It felt like my atomic particles had decompressed, leaving me with wide-open spaces, making me translucent and permeable.

  Striker crouched at my feet. He reached out to touch me. When our palms met, my head snapped up. I sucked air, yanking my hands back as if burned. Striker’s eyes turned from concerned soft green to black as his pupils dilated. I sensed his body brace protectively against the energy. He lowered himself to kneeling. I never thought I’d see this man on his knees.

  As he looked into my eyes, bands constricted my lungs. Impossible to take air in—I was suffocating. My heart pounded so fast and with such fury it seemed to work its way out of the protective cage of my ribs and up my throat to choke me. I couldn’t survive this.

  I tried to jerk my gaze away from his to garner respite, but my eyes fixed on Striker with tunnel vision. Nothing else existed in this world but Striker here in front of me. A vein throbbed at his temple, keeping pace with my galloping pulse. We looked at each other for a long time. Finally, Striker pulled his gaze to the right and broke the spell. He pushed to standing and went to help his men into the Humvee, leaving without another word to me.

  As soon as Striker moved through the door, the energy vanished. My heart reseated itself. My breath was freed, and I slumped, limp and exhausted. This had never happened when I used Reiki before. How confusing. How frightening.

  Blaze walked over with a glass of water for me. He said nothing, which I appreciated. After a while, I got up to repair the twine web I had created on the table, putting it back to its original state—from before I laid Gater down across my papers and string—so I’d be ready to explain the case to Striker when he came back. Blaze watched me moving nervously around the room.

  “Ma’am, you did a remarkable thing.” He sounded reverent.

  I waved my hand in the air as if to erase the notion. “Those were simple techniques. Anyone can learn to do them. I studied with a hospice nurse who took care of my mom.” I paused. “I have to say, I’ve never tried it on anything this serious before. I was stunned.” My brows knit together as I scowled. “I can’t normally do that. I’m not sure how I did it tonight.”

  Blaze nodded solemnly.

  My hands went to my temples. “Blaze, my head is spinning. I think I need to go lie down and get some sleep.”

  “I’ll walk you upstairs, so we don’t have another hospital run.”

  Since Blaze was watching me, I went into my room to go to bed.

  Striker climbed in next to me around three in the morning. I lay awake, with my lights on to keep the boogey man at bay, having failed miserably at falling asleep. I was anxious about Gater and Jack, and a more than a little weirded out over the whole event—especially the energetic side.

  I rolled over to face him. “How are they?”

  “Exactly as you said. Jack’s going to be fine. Gater got sixteen stitches in his arm and has four broken ribs. The doctors said the damnedest thing. They thought the ribs must have been broken weeks ago. They had already started to knit back together.”

  “Shoot. I hoped that wouldn’t happen. Did they need to rebreak them in order to set them properly?” I grimaced.

  “They got them in place by manipulating him.”

  My brows shot up to my hairline. “God. I hope they had him sedated.”

  “They knocked him out. Jack’s taking a day to rest tomorrow. He sends you a big thank-you. Made me stop and get you some flowers. The only place I found open was a twenty-four-hour grocery. I put them in a vase downstairs.” He pulled the cover up over my shoulder. “I hope you like magenta and purple because I didn’t have a choice. Gater will be on light duty for the next couple of weeks until he recovers.”

  “So, I won’t see him?” I frowned.

  “You’ll see him—I bet he’ll be showing up for dinner every night. He may even hang out here, doing computer searches on your case. He won’t be charged with your safety, though—not until he’s a hundred percent.”

  Quiet filled the room. I couldn’t read Striker’s mood. Or my own for that matter.

  “Can you help me understand what happened here tonight?” Striker’s voice was strength and warmth.

  I cleared the debris from my throat. “I was trained in Healing Energy work, and I’m a Reiki Master. These are both forms of energy healing that I learned to help my mother through the end of her terminal illness.” I felt self-protective, formal, a soldier in a debriefing. “When the men came in, I understood it was going to be some time before they could get traditional medical care, so I applied what I knew in order to help them.”

  “I’ve seen energy healing done in various ways, in the different countries where the military had us posted. I know, in some cases, it can be effective.” Striker seemed like a tourist in a foreign country, taking in the landscape, trying to make out the language, nonjudgmental. “My men described their experiences to me. Very interesting. Blaze said you whispered something to each of the men, and they seemed to fall into a trance. Did you use hypnotism? Did they need to be in an altered state for the energy to work?”

  “Not at all. I asked them to trust me and to make themselves available for healing. I have to give them kudos. It had to have been a very strange experience. I was putting out enormous amounts of energy.”

  “Energy from you?” Striker’s concern was tangible. “I don’t want you to exert or injure yourself to help my men.”

  “That’s not how it works. I don’t give them my energy; I channel energy sort of like an electrical conduit.” Well usually. I was still trying to wrap my head around what
happened after I stopped doing Reiki. I wished I could talk to Miriam and Kim.

  The sensations I experienced sitting in the rocking chair unnerved me. They felt otherworldly. Like I was connecting to something bigger. Stronger. Something dangerously threatening. But not Wilson. I was sure it had nothing directly to do with Wilson. Though … no, that wasn’t entirely true. Wilson shimmered around the edges of my consciousness, and the omnipresent stench was denser—acrid in my nostrils. Two entirely different scenarios played out. Two layers. Which probably explained my confusion. With Wilson, I sensed he was physically closer than any of us would have guessed. With the other … I just didn’t know. Something was brewing.

  I wondered if I could sweep away the first layer—the thick, heavy one that wrapped around me so tightly when Striker touched my hands—would I pick up more information about Wilson? I didn’t like the idea of Wilson being physically close. Had he discovered the safe house?

  “Then later, when you sat in the chair?” Though spoken gently, Striker’s question snapped me back from my thoughts, jarring me.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

  “You weren’t able to stop the connection?”

  “I wasn’t connected to either Jack or Gater; I was still pumping energy—just not energy I recognized.”

  “When I touched your hands, my whole body lit up.”

  I shifted uncomfortably around in the bed. My breathing came in shallow puffs. I sat up, hoping to find more oxygen. To gain more control. “Near as I can figure, when you approached you were a creative force. You wanted to help me, to make sure I was all right. At the time, I generated an equal force. I think our energies knocked up against each other, like two positive ends of a battery trying to meet.” I bumped my fists together to demonstrate the idea. “To me it felt like sparks, like getting shocked. Had you approached in a receptive way, then my energy would have flowed into you.”

  Striker gave me a long, appraising look. Finally, he said, “I’d like to try. Can you do it now?”

  “Sure,” I put my palms over his heart, making the symbol and whispering the mantra to start the flow of energy. When the Reiki stopped, Striker took my hands in his, turned them over and searched my palms, rubbing them with his thumbs. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Striker? Did this energy seem different from the energy when I was sitting in the chair?”

  “Very different. Why?”

  “I’d like to tell you something. It has to be confidential. You can’t share this with anyone. Promise?” I whispered.

  “This sounds intriguing.” An odd tone colored his voice—maybe he was bracing himself for a new Lexi surprise. Maybe he should be.

  “You didn’t promise.”

  “Lexi, I’m not sure I can. I’ll try to respect your confidentiality. I can’t give you anything more.”

  “Okay. I guess.” I crisscrossed my legs and looked down at Striker. “The backstory first. My mom started hospice with our favorite nurse Kim. Kim trained people in Healing Energy and Reiki. When she saw my interest, Kim taught me how to use both forms of energy work to help Mom.”

  “This has to do with your healing work?”

  “No, not really. Over time, as I became better at using the energy to help, I noticed that sometimes the energy shifted, and I had these strange experiences. They’re hard to describe, sort of like standing between two planes. I call it ‘going behind the Veil.’”

  “Like an out of body experience?”

  “Sort of—at least that gives you a frame of reference. At the time, I didn’t know what was happening. So I asked Kim about it, and Kim introduced me to her wife Miriam who is a professional psychic. Miriam worked with me a little to see what I could and couldn’t do. Now, Miriam isn’t a wannabe. She’s a respected authority. Law enforcement up and down the East Coast hire her to help with missing persons and to find clues on cold cases. Dave and Stan both know her.”

  Striker interrupted me. “Is this Miriam Laugherty we’re talking about?”

  “You know her, too?”

  “I know of her. The agents hate to call her in. They don’t want to believe she can do what she can, but she’s undeniably effective. She has a good track record and an impeccable reputation for professionalism.”

  “Thank you. Your saying that helps me to tell you this story.” I rubbed my thumb into the palm of my hand. “Miriam started working with me. It turns out I have a talent for remote searches. I trained with Miriam to build my skills until I could ‘go behind the Veil’ at will and gather information like Miriam can. Miriam wanted me to help her work on some of her cases. She always has more requests than she can handle. I thought I’d like solving crimes with her.”

  Striker pulled his brow together. How should I read that? Worried, maybe. “Did Spyder know about this?”

  Why would that matter? “Uh, yes.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt. You trained with Miriam …”

  “Right, and I started being able to leave my body and retrieve information at will. Miriam did a lot with imprints, that is to say, a crime that happened in the past. I couldn’t do much with that at all. My skills were present tense. This would have been good, had things worked out better. Miriam would have worked on cold cases, and I’d take the immediate cases.”

  “Things didn’t work out?”

  “Not at all,” I said emphatically. “One night Miriam brought me this case—a woman in imminent danger—Miriam wasn’t having any luck picking up on her. Long story short, I found her. The process was horrific, and I decided I couldn’t use those skills ever again.”

  “Why? What happened?” Striker asked.

  “When I went behind the Veil, the crisis seemed to suck me in. I merged with this woman. I could see what she saw and feel what she felt. I experienced all of it. When I was able to separate myself, I had to sleep for three days to recover. It was physically and emotionally painful.” My gaze searched along the seam separating the ceiling from the wall. My fingers worked the soft cotton sheets convulsively. “When I talked to Miriam, she and I agreed that doing psychic police work wasn’t going to be the right thing for me. She said I should do what felt comfortable, and decline the rest. That was pretty much it. I haven’t felt a pull toward the Veil, that is, a pull to leave this plane, since Mom died. I definitely felt it tonight, when I sat in the rocking chair.”

  “Do you think it has something to do with finding Wilson?”

  “Not directly. His information is unrelated to the pull.”

  “What?” He shook his head, his eyes quizzical.

  “I felt Wilson, but his energy was kind of coattailed on. Like the energy attached peripherally.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to ask questions about this. Did you get any sense of why you felt this way?”

  “I’m pretty sure it had to do with you. It started when you came into the room. When you touched my hands, I felt like I should pull you in to see something, something incredibly important. It was such a demanding sensation. I couldn’t wrap my brain around what it meant, though, or what I should do about it. The energy stopped when you left.”

  “I don’t have any answers for you. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not in any trouble, are you? Any danger?” I reached out to grip at his arm.

  “My job is to be in danger. I’m in danger all the time. So far, I’ve made it through. Talk to me about the Wilson coattail thing you said.”

  “If I’m right about danger surrounding you, it doesn’t come from Wilson’s direction. I’d say that because you are invested in finding Wilson, you’ve picked up on his energy along the way, and I sensed it. He isn’t far.”

  Striker stilled. “We aren’t far from the capture? Or he’s not physically far away?”

  “There was too much. Everything happened too fast … If I had to guess, I’d say both. You’re on the trail. He’s nearby. What nearby means is relative. It could mean here in the vicinity or DC.”
>
  “Right here? In the neighborhood?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t understand the impression. I definitely picked up on a woman and a child though.”

  Striker’s eyes dilated, and he pushed up to sitting. “What did you get about the woman and her child?” he asked very quietly, barely moving his jaw.

  “Just their vague presence. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you if I get anything more.”

  He nodded.

  “You didn’t seem surprised by all this,” I said.

  “That’s because, Chica, I’m learning to pace myself around you. You need to sleep.” With that, Striker leaned over and turned off the light. And, as if responding to a command, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out for the night.

  Twenty-Seven

  My sheets enveloped me in a damp cocoon as I pushed through the surface of a horrible dream. No, not a dream. An impression. A foreboding. I glanced around Striker’s room. I was alone. Well, whatever scary-ass thing that was headed my way would come whether I was ready or not. Might as well face it dressed.

  My feet were light on the tread as I scooted down the stairs, hoping to find Striker eating breakfast. In the kitchen, Axel balanced on a stool at the counter, drinking coffee and tapping on his computer.

  “Striker’s gone already?” My voice sounded breathy, like I had just stepped off a treadmill.

  “He had an early meeting at Headquarters. Left at six.” Axel reflexively glanced at the clock.

  “Is he going to be gone all day? Are you my watchdog?”

  “I’ll be here ’til noon. I expect Striker back then.” Axel squinted at me. “Is everything alright? Something I can help you with?”

  “I wanted to go over the puzzle with him.” I pointed at the string and Post-its all over the table.